


Blame

by byebands



Category: American Assassin (2017)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 12:47:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17284340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/byebands/pseuds/byebands
Summary: A mission takes a terrible turn, and this is the outcome. Aka: Mitch is terrible at giving bad news.





	Blame

**Author's Note:**

> Shared almost two years ago to my tumblr, and now I'm sharing it here as well.

Your fingers danced in the water pouring from the spout of the bathtub, waiting for the water to heat up enough for you to switch it over to the shower head. You felt like it was taking forever, slowly winding its way through the pipes of the presumably old hotel with less gusto than even you could muster right now. Just as you were about to resign yourself to a cold shower the temperature picked up and you fiddled with the knob for a second before pulling the little stopper. The shower head kicked on, sputtering before thin steady streams began pounding against the floor of the tub.

 

With a grimace you tugged the tattered remains of your black henley over your head, dropping it into the sink with a wet splosh. You were soaked, head to toe, in various liquids. Rain. Blood, some yours some others. Sewer water, good for your cuts you imagined. Gasoline. And maybe a few of your own tears were straggling on your cheeks. In all, you felt disgusting.

Your jeans were next. The button fought with you for a second before popping free, the zipper sliding down easily. You hooked your thumbs into the waistband and pushed then down your legs, your underwear hitching a ride as well. Adding them to the sink with your shirt, you half thought about how to get rid of them. That’s a problem for later me, you concluded while unhooking your bra. It joined your other clothes, looking the most prestine. You wondered how.

You didn’t risk looking at yourself in the mirror above the sink. Couldn’t face how battered you must have been. If the throbbing in all of your body was any indication, you’d look like a dalmation tomorrow with all of your cuts, bruises and scrapes.

When the warm water of the shower hit your body, it took everything in you not to whimper. You hurt. Really hurt. Not just physically, though that was the most demanding at the moment. Your heart was also aching, tears trying to fall at any given second. You’d watched a new requite die beside you, and it had shaken you, for whatever reason. He’d perished before the mission even really got under way. It was odd for that to happen. It threw you off.

You felt stupid. You’d been on plenty of missions before, dozens upon dozens. But this one. This one mission was the worst you’d ever been on. You felt like all of your training had been removed from you. Like you had forgotten it all in an instant. You were making so many mistakes, fumbling every move, every counter attack.

You watched the water swirl around your feet as it flowed down your body, thumping against your tense back. The color of it was a dark red, indicative of the dried blood and dirt clinging to your battered skin. You turned your body around, keeping your head ducked so your face wasn’t being assaulted by the water. You could feel a nasty welt on your cheek bone from a particularly sour contact with someone’s fist and you didn’t need it being aggravated.

You stayed, ducked under the stream, for what felt like years. Your breathing was steady but you could still feel your heart whapping against your ribs with the remains of adrenaline. You wondered absently if it shouldn’t have been snuffed out by now.

Before you lost the last little bit of your energy you decided to do an examination of your injuries. You were bruised, which you had already known would be the case. Angry purple splotches had formed on nearly every part of your body. With a scoff you muttered, “I’m gonna look like fucking Barney tomorrow.”

You had a few cuts as well. The worst of them was along your hip, not deep enough to be a risk, but it still hurt like a bitch. You couldn’t decide if it would need to be stitched or not.  
You examined another cut on your left forearm, noting that it would only need to be cleaned out and wrapped.

You hadn’t suffered any gunshots, nor any stabs, and you couldn’t consider yourself luckier. Not that you’d escaped so seemingly unscathed by your own prowess and combative skills. No. You knew exactly who you had to thank for your life at this current moment.

Stepping out of the shower you loosely wrapped a towel around yourself, tucking it so that it wouldn’t fall off. Your hair hung in wet tendrils around your face, which you made quick work of tying in a wrapped bun on top of your head, secured tightly with a rubber band.

Opening the bathroom door, you were startled to see Mitch standing in front of the mirror hung on the wall. His hair was wet from the rain, and sticking to his head like a helmet, the ends curling as they were beginning to dry. His shirt was off, you noticed it discarded at his feet, and he was fiddling with a piece of gauze.

Cautiously you approached him, hoping he had heard the bathroom door or seen you in the mirror. Since he’d ordered you to leave back in the sewers, you weren’t sure you should be particularly forward or friendly with him.

You placed your hand on his shoulder blade as gently as you could, making sure to keep your voice soft when you spoke. “Would you like some help?” You asked.

“No,” he snapped. He shifted his shoulder forward to give you the hint to remove your hand. You did.

You could practically see the emotions written on his face when you caught a glimpse of it in the mirror. As much as he tried being a stone, he wasn’t very good at it.

“Did you clean that?” You indicated the wound to his right side. It was nearly 4 inches in length, and looked like it was extremely painful. You noticed his jaw clench before he spoke, “of course I cleaned it. I’m not a fucking idiot, y/n.”

You recoiled from him completely at this point, making a point to walk to your suitcase rather than stand behind him. “I never thought you were, Mitch,” you said in defense while searching for a pair of underwear. You tugged them on before continuing. “I was just asking you. I was going to offer to clean it for you if you hadn’t.”

“I already said I don’t need help,” he reminded you. You sighed, pulling on a pair of black stretch pants from your suitcase and a spaghetti strap tanktop that had been bleached stained when you had to dye your hair for a mission a few months prior.

Mitch got the gauze taped over his wound before turning to look at you. “I’ve honestly got nothing I want to say to you right now, y/n. And I certainly don’t want you trying to be nice to me, or offering to help. Just, leave me the hell alone.”

You bit on your bottom lip. Sure, you’d been trained to kill, but that didn’t mean your emotions had been stripped from you.

“No.” You said flatly.

Mitch’s eyes narrowed into an intimidating glare. “Excuse me?”

“I said,” you cleared your throat. “I said ‘no’, Mitch. I’m not going to leave you alone, and I’m not going to stop trying to be nice to you. Regardless of what went down tonight, we’re still partners. You can disregard me as a confidant, as a friend, as a lover, as anything else. But you can’t deny that we are in this together, until this mission is completed.”

Mitch balled his hands into fists, speaking through a clenched jaw, “This mission is over.”  
You raises an eyebrow at this statement, sitting down on the bed, becoming once more aware of the cut on your hip.

“What do you mean the mission is over?” You asked. You were well aware that you’d made some mistakes, and the opposition had gotten the upper hand on you, but. The mission hadn’t been lost, you didn’t think. When Mitch had yelled for you to return to the hotel, you had figured he just didn’t want you managing to fuck anything more up.

“I mean, it’s been terminated. Kennedy called it. After you left, I -” Mitch stopped mid sentence, shaking his head. He turned abruptly, punching the wall beside him, leaving a whole the size of his fist. You didn’t flinch, didn’t so much as blink. You were trained not to jump at sudden movements.

Mitch’s tape on his gauze bandage had come loose, the bloody swatch of gauze flopping over to reveal the wound which had since begun trickling blood. He didn’t seem to notice.   
After waiting a few breaths, you finally managed to speak. “You what, Mitch?”

He took a deep breath. “I diffused the situation that you had done nothing but make worse. Then I got in contact with her. Reported what happened.”

You swallowed hard. “What did you tell her?”

“Exactly what happened.” He said, completely cold. You remembered the fighting, the screaming, the knife that was coming straight for you before -

“What happened after I left, Mitch?” You tried, hoping to finish the narrative that seemed worse than you imagined.

Mitch shook his head, looking down at his knuckles. They were already scuffed from the hand to hand he had done earlier, but now the knuckles were split open. He flexed his fingers, making sure nothing was jammed. He was fine, you assumed.

“Mitch,” you pressed. “What happened?” If there was one thing Mitch was, that was stubborn. When he closed himself off, he was harder to pry open than a dog’s mouth when they were hoarding a treat.

“Mitch!” You near shouted, anger and worry bubbling inside of you.

“Stan died.” He screamed at you, the vein in his neck bulging. “That’s what happened, y/n. Stan fucking died. I held him in my arms as, as -” He shook his head and you watched his eyes well up before he scrunched them shut.

Your heart began pounding, your throat instantly feeling dry. You took a moment before you could find your voice. “Mitch, he didn’t. This is cruel, even for you. Don’t - don’t lie about someone’s death you asshole.”

Mitch took a deep breath, “I’m not lying.” He found his way to the chair opposite the bed, sitting down in it heavily. “When he -” Mitch cleared his throat, struggling with his emotions. You sat closer to the edge of the bed, feeling weak.

“When he stopped Jackson - that was the name of the main antagonist as Irene called him, by the way. I learned that after digging his throat out with a blade. When he stopped Jackson from shooting you, he took the shot instead. It was silenced. You were busy with someone else. He didn’t notice the gunshot until after he’d managed to keep you from getting a knife to the spine. The forearm wound, the one you witnessed, that was practically a flesh wound. He would’ve been fine. God! He would have been /fine/, y/n. But-”  
Tears were freely rolling down your cheeks as you sat staring at Mitch who was visibly upset, gettig choked up on the story.

“The bullet - it must’ve punctured his lung somehow. It had to have.” Mitch was looking at his hand at this point, and you noted how distant his gaze looked. How far removed he seemed. He was back in the sewers where the majority of this incident had taken place.

“I watched him fall to his knees as I was finishing off that blonde that kept disappearing during the fight. He’d managed to knock Jackson, he was the last of them alive then, unconscious before dropping down. He was clutching at his chest and throat,” Mitch began picking at the fabric on the arm of the chair he was sat in. You pulled your feet up onto the bed, wrapping your arms around your legs to hold yourself.

“When I got to him, he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t even breathe. Just kept making this wet gurgling noise. Blood was starting to leak from the corner of his mouth. I was trying to figure out how the fuck to help him. I had seen a way to release the blood from the lung with a pen, clear up the air way or whatever.” Mitch was tears at the fabric with his blunt nails and the tips of his fingers, his body tenser than before.

“I couldn’t remember it though. Couldn’t barely fucking think. I just, sat down next to him and tried to prop him up. Keep the blood from choking him completely. Wanted to try and clear his airways. It wasn’t working. He started coughing then, blood splattering out, covering his cheeks and mouth in red. It coated my chest…” You watched pieces of the foam from the arm of the chair float to the ground like snow. You would later wonder who have to pay for the damage Mitch caused.

He wiped his face with his other before continuing. “He gripped my shirt and I kept trying to reassure him things would be fine. Because that’s what people do right? That’s what people do. They sit there and tell people everything will be fine, and no one believes it. But they hope it makes them feel better. And God. I sat there and held my mentor, our mentor, up while he choked to death on his own fucking blood. Blood that was only in his lungs because of a fucking bullet he shouldn’t have taken.”

Mitch dragged his hand down his face again, inhaling sharply through his nose to clear it of mucus. “Stan died. He’s dead, and…” Mitch’s voice trailed off, bigger chunks of foam falling to the floor.

You let out a sob against your knees as you held them tighter against your chest, your arms constricting around your legs even more. You were still trying to tell yourself Mitch was lying.

That the man who you had been training and working under for roughly three years wasn’t dead. That he was just testing you again, that it was all in an effort to make you stronger. Tougher. More callous.

“Stop lying to me,” you sobbed. You were getting yourself more worked up. Your brain trying to decide whether to be crushed or angry. Deciphering if it was really the truth or a vicious lie.

Mitch snorted, shaking his head. A shiver ran down your spine when his nails scraped against the wood of the arm on the chair. “I’m not lying to you, y/n. Do you r _eally_ think I would sit here and make this up? You’re disgusting if you really believe that.”

Your heart skipped a beat, tears pouring down your cheeks faster. “He can’t have died, Mitch. He was supposed to go peacefully, alone in that stupid fucking cabin. Not in some disgusting sewer in fucking Paris of all places!”

Mitch snorted, “I know. Don’t you think I thought that? Don’t you think that ran through my head as I watched him die. Listened to him fight for his last gurgling breath?”

You sniffles, shaking your head. “How could this have happened?”

“You.” Mitch said, simply. He had no emotion to his voice.

“Excuse me?” You asked, suppressing a hiccupping sob.

“You heard me,” Mitch said. He lifted his eyes to look at you. “You’re how this could have happened. You were a fucking fool out there. Useless. It was like you had never been in the field before in your life. A new born baby trying to fight her way out of a paper bag. You’re how.”

His voice was starting to sound a little more venomous as he spoke.

“It wasn’t my fucking fault!” You near shrieked, letting your legs go. “Stan knew what he was doing!”

“It was you.” Mitch said again.

“No! God, I don’t know. I don’t know what Stan was thinking. How could he be so carele-”  
Mitch cut you off with a deep voiced shout. “Stop!” He sat forward in his armchair, glaring at you. “Don’t you go trying to say Stan was responsible for his own death. He took a bullet to keep it from hitting you. To keep you from undoubtedly dying in that sewer instead of him.”

He stood from the chair then, trying in vain to fix the bandage he had just remembered was there. “Stan is dead, and it’s because of you. Stan is dead, and it’s all your fucking fault!” He sounded vicious as he spoke, his voice like knives skinning you.

“Mitch! Please stop,” You begged.

He rest his hands on his hips, having given up on the bandage. “No! You need to hear this, y/n! You need to know that the only reason Stan died is because of /you/. Because you’re careless, and reckless, and you shouldn’t be in the fucking field. You should pack your shit up, tell Irene you resign, and get fucking lost. Somewhere far away.”

Your heart, which was filled to the brim with sadness from the discovery of the loss of your father figure, now thrummed with a vein of anger.

“Mitch Rapp, I will not fucking tolerate you talking to me like that! We are in this together! It isn’t my fault that Stan died! Stop treating me like this!” He watched you with a cold stare. “You’re hurt! I know that! But you’re not the only one who  _just_  lost Stan, Mitch! You’re not the only one who has a monopoly on loss and sadness.”

Mitch set his jaw, balling his fists again. “In this instance, I am. The person who caused someone’s death doesn’t get to be sad about losing them!”

“I’m not the reason Stan’s dead!” You screamed, breathing heavily. “I’m as much the reason for Stan’s death as you are for Katrina’s!”

The moment her name left your lips you knew you’d gone too far. In the year and a half you’d been Mitch’s partner (per Stan pairing you up), you’d never once uttered her name. You knew she was off limits, even on a particularly good day for Mitch. You could nearly see the hurt and anger rolling off of him on waves.

Mitch snatched a shirt from his suitcase, yanked it on, and quickly stuffed his pockets with his important things. He didn’t even look at you as he did so.

“Mitch,” you whispered. “Mitch, I’m sorry.” You said a bit louder.

Nothing.

“Mitch! I’m sorry! I’m just… I’m overwhelmed and I didn’t mean that… I’m so sorry. Please, what’re you doing?”

Mitch walked towards the door. “I’m leaving.” His voice sounded almost clinical. “I’m not about to have you be the cause of my death too. Stan was enough.”

You watched Mitch pull the door open, and kept your eyes trained on the spot he left out of, even after the door had shut.   
  
**  
  
It took nearly three weeks for the CIA to clear the funeral for Stan Hurley. Irene had called you herself to tell you the date.

You could barely get out of bed. You felt as if your world impolded. You’d lost your mentor, someone you’d spent such a grueling part of your life with. You’d lost your partner, the man you shared more aspects of your life with than you thought you could. You lost your nerve, feeling you’d never be able to go on a mission again. And now.   
Now you were faced with the reality of everything. Stan’s funeral would make everything feel real. Feel concrete. You couldn’t force yourself to pretend it was all some big, elaborate, terrible lie.   
  
*

You arrived to the funeral location early, hoping to be able to pay your respects and leave before anyone else showed up.

Who else would show up though, you thought to yourself. Stan wasn’t married. Had no children. And most of his trainees were either murdered or wouldn’t risk showing up here.   
You were busying yourself with smoothing out your dress when out of the corner of your eye you saw movement in one of the pews.

You stood up straight, reaching for the gun on your thigh holster, when you processed the movement as a person. And then quickly who that person was.

“Mitch,” you whispered.

He turned his head, noticing you for the first time since you arrived.

“Hello, y/n.” Mitch said. He sounded formal, like he was greeting a college professor and not someone he’d spent the better part of a year sharing his bed with.

“It’s nice to see you again.” You said softly, sitting down in the pew on the other side of the church as the row he was sat in.

“Likewise.”

You gnawed on your bottom lip for a moment before standing up. “I’m just. Going to say my goodbyes to Stan, and then I’ll leave…” You said, motioning to the casket.

Mitch nodded and watched you walk for a few seconds before speaking. “I’m sorry, by the way. For saying it was your fault. Stan’s death, that is. I was hurt, and I was blaming you. And I’m sorry.”

You stopped, turning to look at him with shock. “Oh… I uh…” You cleared your throat. “Thank you, for saying that. And again, I’m sorry for what I said to you that night.”

Mitch shrugged, “you’re forgiven.”  
You gave him a soft smile. “Would you walk up with me? I don’t want to see him alone.”  
Mitch nodded, standing from his seat on the pew. He joined you, taking your hand in his, before the two of you made the rest of the walk to the open casket.   
You peered in, tears flooding your eyes immediately as you looked down at Stan. Your hand tightened around Mitch’s. The world around you froze.

You’d seen hundreds of dead bodies before, but none like this. None that affected you this deeply. Your cheeks became damp as you spoke.

“Thank you, Stan. Your guidance has changed my life in every way imaginable, and I owe you the world. Thank you for teaching me, nurturing me in your tough love kind of way, and for saving my life. I’ll never be able to repay you, and I’ll never stop being grateful to you. I love you, Stan Hurley.” You sobbed, clearing your throat a bit. “May I see you again. Goodbye, Sir.”

Mitch squeezed your hand when you stopped speaking, looking down at Mitch. He pulled something out of his pocket, and placed it on Stan’s chest. “Goodbye, Sir.” Mitch said, sounding emotional.

The two of you stood before Stan’s casket for a moment longer before turning and walking out of the church hand in hand.


End file.
